A bit earlier this winter, some vandal spray-painted two words, including the “f-word,” on an excruciatingly visible-to-the-street garage door along California Ave, just south of the Morgan Junction McDonald’s. With the proximity of Gatewood School, I wouldn’t think it an exaggeration to speculate that vulgarity assaulted thousands of young eyes (and offended age-nonspecific others).

Someone finally has covered it with white paint. Finally. But not all spray-paint vandalism is so easy to cover — for years, I’ve shuddered at the tags that have blighted our business districts, especially when the vandals have painted them onto natural-tone brickwork. And I know that in other areas of the city, some of the more creatively criminal vandals have taken to etching.

This all brings me to a CNN.com video-game review linked prominently from the site’s home page this morning. Yeah, I know games are supposedly a harmless outlet for people to engage in even worse kinds of fantasy crime. I’d made a bit of peace with that. But for some empty-brain headline writer to declare fantasy vandalism “fresh and fun” just chaps me. Just wait till the designers wake up someday to someone having engaged in this “fresh and fun” crime on their property, requiring a costly cleanup.

If Michaelangelo had painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling without permission, that still would have been vandalism, regardless of its artistic merit.

/rant